


Your Body is My Refuge

by Emotionally Compromised Robots (CDRomelle)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, For one of them at least, M/M, Oral Sex, difficulty orgasming, extremely tender blow job, giving a blowjob is something that can be so healing, sex where the goal isn't to come
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:34:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27466516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CDRomelle/pseuds/Emotionally%20Compromised%20Robots
Summary: Joe and Nicky get bad news. Doesn't matter what kind. They comfort each other through the grief, and though each of them needs something different, they still carry each other through the storm.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 14
Kudos: 99





	Your Body is My Refuge

**Author's Note:**

> I started this in an anxiety haze on the night of the U.S. election and finished it this weekend while riding out my emotional hangover. 
> 
> This is a sex scene, but Joe and Nicky are each asking the other for something a bit different, and an orgasm isn't necessarily the goal.

Bad news is like a burden on their backs, Yusuf thinks. A physical object, exerting weight upon them both. 

They keep their hands to themselves as they walk side-by-side through the city, just barely touching where Nicolò's shoulders bump Yusuf's. A muscle ticks in Nicolò's jaw. Yusuf's vision keeps blurring from tears that won't quite fall. 

They don't talk. They don't need to. What they need is to get home, to the little room above the florist shop that they've been renting, and to be together. To sit with this, to excise it. 

Right now, such an exorcism seems impossible. Dread has hollowed his bones, grief has smothered his heart. He feels amputated, closed down, left only with this borderless pain and, below it, an awareness of Nicolò: his body, his closeness, the path he takes through featureless streets. Where are they? He could say if he had to, could dig deep and muster an answer, but he doesn't have to. These waters are troubled, the air thick with fog, but if he follows this lighthouse he will find shore. 

Did Nicolò's jaw just tick again? Yusuf blinks and _God_ , even his eyelashes are heavy, moisture clinging to the tips. His hands twitch, longing to grasp Nicolò's hand. Bump, goes Nicolò's shoulder. Bump bump. 

Yusuf follows the lighthouse.

When they finally reach the door of their place, Nicolò's hand is shaking so badly he fumbles the key on the first try. 

That's a bad sign, Yusuf notes through the numb fog in his mind. That either means Nicolò's furious, or—

Nicolò gets the door open, drags Yusuf inside by the front of his shirt, kicks the door closed again, and presses Yusuf's body against it with his own. 

Ah, Yusuf thinks, and meets Nicolò's kiss like a flower bends toward sunlight. 

Nicolò's tongue brushes against his lips and Yusuf opens for him, lets Nicolò grab handfuls of his hair and lick his tongue into Yusuf's mouth, over his teeth and along the seam of his lips. 

_Take this from me_ , he's saying in a language only he and Yusuf speak. _Take this from me._

Yusuf sucks on Nicolò's lower lip, and the bite of his teeth says, _Give it to me._

He buries his head in Nicolò's neck, giving Nicolò access to his own, letting the groan pour out of him, muffled against the warmth of Nicolò's skin, as the sharp sweet pain of teeth sink into the muscle between Yusuf's neck and shoulder. Nicolò seals his lips to Yusuf's skin and sucks. 

Yusuf moans again, torn between arching his head back and nuzzling it deeper against Nicolò; he does one then the other, holding on to Nicolò's neck with his own teeth, his grip gentler than the one still clamped, vise-like, over his trapezius. He lets his head loll on Nicolò's shoulder and his eyes slide shut. 

_More, more, need his skin against mine,_ Yusuf thinks, and no sooner does he than Nicolò is undoing his belt. Nicolò's mouth comes free of Yusuf's neck with a wet pop and he pulls back just far enough to wrench Yusuf's shirt off—Yusuf's shoulder twinges as his arms are forced upwards and he cranes his head, trying to see the bruise already fading on his neck—and then Nicolò's own shirt comes after it. Yusuf hears the soft _whoompf_ of the fabric hitting the ground and then the sensation of touch overwhelms him: the cold hard door against his back and Nicolò's chest against his front. 

Nicolò's teeth find his neck again. 

Yusuf wraps his arms around Nicolò's shoulders and holds on. 

Here, right here in this little pearl of a moment, it is warm and it is sweet. Yusuf's thoughts smooth out, just enough pain in the pleasure that his mind is full up with sensation; he can think of nothing else but Nicolò, Nicolò, Nicolò. The grief is still behind his eyes, but Nicolò has gentled its edges, blurred its borders just as he defies the borders of their two bodies. 

When Nicolò reaches for his trousers Yusuf thinks, _yes, press every inch of yourself against me. I want to feel you everywhere._ The trousers and underclothes are quickly gone. Warmth blooms in his chest as Nicolò seals their bodies together, from their necks all the way down to Nicolò's left foot covering Yusuf's right. And— _Mmm._

It's almost a surprise, the hard hot jut of Nicolò's cock against Yusuf's hip. Yusuf is far out at sea but his hands know what to do, tracing their way down Nicolò's back to grip his ass, to grind his lover against his own hips. Nicolò, always attentive, reaches between Yusuf's legs to position him as well, but when his fingers find Yusuf—a little fuller than normal but not hard—he pulls back. 

"Yusuf," Nicolò says, a question. 

Yusuf nuzzles Nicolò's nose, kisses his lips. "Nicolò," he says, an encouragement. 

But Nicolò pulls back a little farther, his eyes as steady as a wildfire, as sharp as a storm-tossed sea. "What do you want, my love?" he says, and his voice is a blanket. 

"I want this," Yusuf says, rubbing his hip bone against Nicolò's cock. "I want you, I want to think of nothing but you." He leans up to kiss the crinkle of Nicolò's brow. "Come here." With the tips of his fingers he pulls Nicolò's hips flush again, rolling his hips up to press Nicolò's cock between their bellies. 

Nicolò goes hesitantly at first, letting Yusuf put them in place, set the rhythm. Yusuf tilts his head against Nicolò's, his mouth open, lips dragging against the stubble on Nicolò's cheeks. Only when Yusuf follows his lips with his tongue does Nicolò pull the both of them away from the door. 

Eyes closed, Yusuf lets Nicolò, walking backward, guide them both across the room to their bed. Nicolò sits down on the edge. Presses his cheek into Yusuf's belly and for a moment they just hold each other, Nicolò's arms slung low around Yusuf's waist and Yusuf's arms cradling Nicolò's head. Nicolò is still shaking. Yusuf still feels like he weighs a thousand pounds. 

But everywhere they touch is a tether, a reprieve, a relief. 

Yusuf urges Nicolò backward, up toward the head of the bed. He gets a grip on Nicolò's ankle as he settles between his legs. He feels warm, warm like old embers, like a banked fire. The grief they brought in with them is still there, it's the sand on the fire, heavy but not enough to smother him entirely. 

Not when Nicolò burns so brightly beside him. 

Sprawled before Yusuf like this, Nicolò is a forest fire, his rage turned incandescent in the sweat on his brow, the flex of his muscles, the little whimper locked in the back of his throat as Yusuf's breath ghosts down his thighs. 

Yusuf lowers his head to touch his lips to the tip of Nicolò's cock. He lets the tip of it spear his lips open, lets gravity guide his head down, down, down until his breath is gone, his throat closed up with Nicolò and his nostrils smushed against the curling hairs of his groin. 

He waits, breath stoppered up but in no hurry, until the tremor passes through Nicolò's body, before pulling off and breathing through his nose. 

And God but it's a relief to fill his mind with Nicolò's body, to subsume himself in Nicolò's pleasure. Yusuf makes himself empty of everything but his love. 

Nicolò doesn't thrust, just buries his hand in Yusuf's curls and holds on, spine curled, body roiling, eyes fixed. 

Yusuf draws it out, just a little, neither rushing nor teasing. Sometimes when Nicolò is like this he wants it to hurt a bit. Yusuf doesn't want that today, though. He doesn't want it rough. He just wants. 

When Nicolò is close—his cock rigid and straining; Yusuf can taste his pulse—Yusuf wraps a hand around him, with lips and fingers gives him just enough friction to—

There. 

Nicolò's voice, low and loud and ragged, rushes through Yusuf a moment before the soft splash of salt hits the back of his tongue. Yusuf takes a deep breath, grips Nicolò's hips, and sinks down. Nicolò shudders and Yusuf can feel come and spit gathering in his jaw but he just presses his nose into the curls of Nicolò's groin and holds him in the warmth of his mouth. 

Only when Nicolò stills does Yusuf lift his head, letting Nicolò slide out just far enough that he can breathe again. He swallows thickly with Nicolò's cock still in his mouth, then drags his lips the rest of the way up until he's kissing Nicolò's tip and Nicolò whimpers. 

"Yusuf," Nicolò croaks when his breath starts to soften. 

Yusuf tilts his head to rest against Nicolò's thigh. God but Nicolò is beautiful, his dark piercing eyes gentled by orgasm, still sharp enough to spear Yusuf through the core. 

"What do you want?" Nicolò asks again. 

The grief is still there, as present as the bed beneath him, but now it is outnumbered, surrounded. A thing neither to fight nor to contemplate. Soon it will be a part of them, knitted into the tapestry of their very long life. Soon. 

But not tonight. 

Yusuf kisses Nicolò's belly. Kisses it again. "I want you—" another kiss, then he meets Nicolò's gaze again— "I want you to hold me." 

"Oh, my soul," says Nicolò, and reaches for him. 

Nicolò gathers him up against the pillows, then gets up with a murmured, "Just a moment." Yusuf buries his nose in their pillow, chasing Nicolò's scent, and then Nicolò is back with a mug of cool water that he lifts to Yusuf's lips. 

When Yusuf is done drinking they settle together with Yusuf's head on Nicolò's chest, forehead against Nicolò's neck, their legs draped across each other. Nicolò has one hand wrapped around Yusuf's shoulders, holding him tight, and the other buried deep in Yusuf's curls, tugging so gently at the roots.

Yusuf wishes he could wrap Nicolò around him like a blanket; wishes that somehow, some way, every inch of his skin could caress every inch of Nicolò's. He settles for nuzzling his nose into Nicolò's chest, letting the motion pull on his hair just that little bit more.

"Yusuf," says Nicolò, his nose squished to Yusuf's forehead. 

Yusuf doesn't have to open his eyes to know he's still soft, his tender cock lying on Nicolò's hipbone. He's not surprised, nor is he upset. He is tired, and he is warm. 

"Hold me until the morning," he murmurs to the hairs on Nicolò's chest. 

"Always, my love," says Nicolò, holding so tight that for a moment Yusuf can't breathe. "Always." 

"....And pull my hair a bit more." 

He feels, more than hears, Nicolò's chuckle. 

"It is my pleasure."

**Author's Note:**

> I love to write sex scenes where the sex doesn't go smoothly, where things don't go off without a hitch and characters' bodies don't go the way they might want them to. Even immortal bodies! So this is my attempt to write a sex scene that is romantic and emotional without being "sexual" per se. Couples like Joe and Nicky don't need to be on the same page in order to be on the same page, you know? 
> 
> This was very fun and emotionally satisfying for me to write, and I hope you like it too! I'm on Tumblr at EmotionallyCompromisedRobots.


End file.
